Tag Archive for: #fentanyl

TownTalk: Ride to Save Lives Event

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A Ride to Save Lives fundraiser will be held Saturday, May 31 in Henderson at Shooter’s Tavern on Norlina Road. Proceeds will go to support local participation in the Lost Voices of Fentanyl’s national event that will be held in October on the National Mall in Washington, DC.

Local organizer Patricia Drewes said the motorcycle ride will begin at 11 a.m., but the day doesn’t end there. Guest speakers will take the stage about 1 p.m., Drewes said on Monday’s TownTalk and she wants families to come out and bring their children because they need to know how dangerous illicit drugs like fentanyl can be.

Drewes is vice president of the national group Lost Voices of Fentanyl, which she said is the largest fentanyl advocacy group in the U.S. with 36,000 members. The group’s president, April Babcock, is scheduled to speak during the local event, too.

Also on display will be 50 victims impact banners and four teen banners to highlight the tragic loss of young lives to fentanyl.

Beginning about 4 p.m., several bands will perform, including local groups Legendary Lane and Heartbreak Station. Virginia-based Redbank also will perform.

The cover charge for the concert is $15; the cost to ride is $20.

Drewes said she’s organized rallies before, but this is the biggest to date. She thanked Henderson Police Chief Marcus Barrow for his help with planning the route and for volunteering to lead the ride.

“I’m on a mission to save lives,” Drewes said. Her only child, Heaven, died from fentanyl poisoning.

“I want people to come out and bring their children,” she said, stressing the importance of helping young people realize and understand the dangers of illicit drugs.

“This could happen to them,” she said. “It’s just really important that kids see it. They need to understand that ‘yes, it can happen to you.’”

She prefers the word poisoning to overdose because an overdose implies that the person simply took more than the recommended dosage.

“It’s not an overdose,” she said. “There’s no recommended dosage for any illicit drug.”

 

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TownTalk: Fentanyl Awareness Event This Saturday

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Forgotten Victims of North Carolina and New Beginnings Recovery of Grace Ministries are joining forces to host an event on Saturday in Henderson to promote fentanyl awareness.

Forgotten Victims founder Patricia Drewes invites the community to participate in the event, which will be held from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. in the parking lot outside the Vance County Courthouse, located at 156 Church St.

Drewes said guest speakers will come from across the state to talk about the dangers of fentanyl, which takes thousands of lives each year.

“Fentanyl affects us all,” Drewes said on Tuesday’s TownTalk. There will be more than 400 posters with the faces of young people who have died as a result of fentanyl.

“No one’s child is safe,” she said. Drewes’s daughter, Heaven, died from a fentanyl overdose.

She founded Forgotten Victims in 2021 after her daughter’s death so other parents wouldn’t have to face the same feeling of being alone. There are now eight chapters across the state, she said.

“Our motto is ‘No one stands alone in North Carolina,” she added.

Come out on Saturday and learn more about the dangers of illicit fentanyl, as well as information about recovery programs, area resources and get trained on how to administer naloxone, an antidote for opioid poisoning.

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The Local Skinny! Fentanyl Summit Saturday

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More than 13,000 people have died in North Carolina alone in the past nine years from fentanyl. A half-day family summit will be held in Raleigh on Saturday, designed to be part awareness, part education, and part support for those who have family members who have died from fentanyl poisoning.

“Poisoning” is the term Patricia Drewes prefers to “overdose” when describing the unintended deaths that occur all too frequently, especially with teens and young adults.

Drewes founded Forgotten Victims of North Carolina following the 2019 death of her daughter Heaven. She spoke with John C. Rose on Thursday’s segment of The Local Skinny! and said the summit has reached its capacity and will not be able to accept additional registrations.

Within a few months of the COVID-19 pandemic, the now-familiar phrase of “the 3 W’s – Wear, Wash, Wait” became a household term. Drewes said there needs to be a similar campaign to warn and educate the public on the dangers of illicit fentanyl.

“Commercials, billboards – we need to be teaching it in schools, discussing it in our churches,” Drewes said. “I don’t feel like North Carolina is doing enough,” she said.

She said law enforcement officers should carry Narcan – a overdose antidote of a sort – on their belts just like they do other useful tools like flashlights. Often, they arrive on the scene before EMS and administering Narcan could save a life.

North Carolina Attorney General Josh Stein is among those scheduled to speak, as well as victims’ family members, state and federal law enforcement and representatives of local nonprofits.

Drewes and Barb Walsh, executive director of Fentanyl Victims Network of NC are among the organizers of the summit, which will be held at the McKimmon Conference Center from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m.

One of the goals of the summit is to educate and increase awareness, but also to let families know that they are not alone in their grief or in their struggle.

Drewes’s group has grown to five chapters that covers at least half the state; email her at patriciadrewes@yahoo.com to learn more about Forgotten Victims of North Carolina.

Following are some sobering statistics regarding fentanyl use in North Carolina:

  • 8 deaths each day in North Carolina from fentanyl
  • N.C. ranks 6thin fentanyl fatalities
  • Fentanyl is the leading cause of death in N.C. and the U.S. for people 18-35
  • 88 percent of all N.C. medicine/drug toxicity deaths involve fentanyl

 

 

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TownTalk: Fentanyl Is Killing America’s Future – Young People

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Patricia Drews is on a mission – it’s a mission that won’t bring her daughter back, but she is determined to try to help other families learn more about what she calls drug-induced homicide that took the life of her only child.

Her daughter, Heaven, died in 2019 – one of approximately 200 young people dying each day back then in the U.S. from opioids. That figure has doubled to about 400 a day as the opioid epidemic rages. The NC DHHS reported Monday that an average of nine North Carolinians died each day in 2020 as a result of a drug overdose – a 40 percent increase from the previous year.

Drews has written and published a book titled Death of America’s Future: China’s Fentanyl that she said should be available for purchase by the end of the week. It is a compilation of more than 80 accounts – including the tragic story of her daughter Heaven – of families that have lost loved ones to fentanyl poisoning.

“I wanted a mother’s perspective,” she told John C. Rose on Tuesday’s Town Talk, “of losing a child.” The first 50 copies of the book, which she paid for herself, should be available this week on Amazon. It was expensive endeavor, Drews noted, but if the book sales do make a profit, she wants to donate the proceeds to several different organizations, including Lost Voices of Fentanyl, a national organization with more than 10,000 members.

The book contains a color photograph of every mother and child, which was important to Drews so she could show families as they had once been – “that they lived, they loved, they laughed,” she said.

Drews said 104,000 young people in the United States died from drugs, and the numbers just keep climbing, she said.

Drews draws a clear distinction between a drug overdose versus the lethal opioid poisoning responsible for the deaths of so many young people. “Yes, they made a choice to experiment,” she said, “but they did not choose to die. The drug dealer that sold them that fentanyl made that choice for them.”

Raising awareness is critical to keeping young people safe – “we need to educate ourselves and we need to educate our children,” Drews said.

In December 2019, North Carolina enacted a law that allows prosecutors to charge drug dealers who illegally sell a controlled substance that causes someone’s death. The “death by distribution” act carries a penalty of up to 40 years in prison.

Her daughter’s case remains active, she said. “I refuse to let it go – they need to be held accountable.”  Her daughter died in January 2019, just months before the new law went into effect that December.

“But there’s no statute of limitations on homicide,” she said.

To learn more about how to purchase a copy of the book, visit the local Forgotten Victims page on Facebook or contact Drews directly at 252. 204.9611.

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